Students pick up ‘life skills’ on National Citizen Service programme

First year IT and sports students have just completed the government- backed scheme – designed to improve confidence, personal discipline and team spirit.

The group spent time together on a three-day residential trip in Swanage, where they look part in raft building, jungle craft activities and coasteering.

Students also worked in teams to come up with a social action project, to make a difference to the communities they live in.

As part of this, sports students have been working with St John’s Primary School in Bath to develop and deliver a new sports programme.

Alex Gaiger, Deputy Head of Department for Sport, Leisure and Care, said: “Students worked with the children helping them develop new and exciting skills in a range of different sporting disciplines.

“They have received some excellent feedback from the school and plan to develop the relationship further by arranging future sports activity days.”

On November 11, IT and sports students received certificates from Ed Hodges, Director of Joining Forces Training, after completing their National Citizen Service.

Joining Forces Training is the leading provider of NCS for Bath and North East Somerset, designed by ex-military instructors.

Mr Hodges said: “NCS is about lessons you can’t learn in the classroom, we’re trying to build and develop life skills.

“Whatever these students decide to do after college, they need to have a CV or a personal statement and they need to demonstrate those skills employers look for outside of academia.

“We really enjoy doing working with the Bath College groups because the students come from such a wide variety of backgrounds.

“The idea is that they will work together better throughout their course because they’ve had these shared experiences.”

Level 1 and level 2 engineering students from Bath College’s City Centre Campus and its Somer Valley Campus also went away on an NCS residential trip to Cardiff on November 6.

The group are now working on their social action projects, and Bath College is working with Joining Forces on a new NCS programme for Step Up students.

Amy Patterson, Employability Adviser at Bath College said: “NCS is an exciting programme that perfectly fits with our Bath College values, and our overall aim to help students use their skills to become valued and generous members of society.

“The team at Joining Forces go above and beyond to make sure our students have an experience that challenges them and develops their awareness of what it means to be part of a community. We’ve seen fantastic results over the last few years.”

Joining Forces is organising a Christmas programme for 16 to 17-year-olds from Bath from December 16 to December 21.